Charity Jubilee Concert and Commemorative Speech: The MDC celebrates Max Delbrück's 111th birthday
What connects Max Delbrück to the Campus in the north of Berlin? Prof. Nikolaus Rajewsky, head of the MDC's Berlin Institute for Medical Sytems Biology, spun a historical thread stretching from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day. He focused on Max Delbrück's fruitful collaboration with the Russian scientist Nikolai Timoféeff-Ressovsky and the German physicist Karl Günther Zimmer in the Berlin of the 1930s. The scientists famously laid the theoretical foundations for modern genetics in their "Green Pamphlet." Both Delbrück and Timoféeff-Ressovsky live on as namesakes of the institute and a research building on the Campus Buch.
People from more than 60 nations work at the several scientific institutions on Campus – each with their own native language. But the the language of music is universal and connects all cultures, as pointed out by moderator and MDC founding director Prof. Detlev Ganten. Antoine Rebstein, a pupil of music professor Galina Iwanzowa-Bielka of Buch, conducted the Kammerensemble Berlin in performances of works by Tchaikovsky, Mozart and Grieg. Soloists Elisabeth Kogan and Tabea Antonia Streicher were praised for the virtuosity and emotion of their performances. 250 guests donated a total of € 1,658 for the music and historical restrospective, to be shared between the Association of the Friends of the MDC and the Association for the reconstruction of the bell tower of the church of Buch.
